Jessica Phillips MFA: FRANKENPOT..it lives!! (fyi...this is a metaphor)

They say life is what happens while you are making other plans, well for me life is what interrupts me while I am working in the studio. This is not a bad thing it is just the way it is. My life is very full and I am often called away from the studio for reasons beyond my control. Sometime these interruptions are good sometimes not.

On Monday I began working on a slab built vessel. My plan was to form the slabs into the various parts of the vessel (the foot, body, neck, lid) then assemble them after they dried for a bit. The end result would have few seams or joins, focusing on the textures and patterns on the slabs instead of how the pot was made. I made the slabs and wrapped them around the molds to let them set up a bit. I covered the clay parts expecting to work on them the next day when they would still be flexible so I could unwrap them from the molds and assemble the parts. Wrong, Life had an interruption in store for me.......

I was awakened that night/early morning by the phone (never a good thing!) it was my Mother (definitely not good thing!) My stepfather had suffered a massive heart attack and was in the ICU at DHMC and she needed me. My stepfather is my Mother's whole world and for many reasons I won't go into here the only Grandfather my children have ever known. He and my mother were one of the main reasons we moved back to New England six years ago. Having lost my Father last year to Leukemia I just didn't know how I would cope if I lost my Stepfather also. I never had the opportunity to say goodbye to my Father or "I love you" one last time and will I regret that always. So I rushed to pack a bag and made record time on the 2+ hour drive to NH to be with my Stepfather and Mother. Leaving all thoughts of studio work far behind.

I will not go into all the details of what happened after I arrived. Most of you have been through similar situations so you know what those hours/days of waiting and worrying at a hospital are like. Besides, there wouldn't be room here to do so even if I wanted to and you really don't want to read about my personal life since this is in fact a blog about art (surprise!) After spending most of this week at the hospital my Stepfather has been allowed to go home. I am happy to say that his prognosis is good and with the proper lifestyle modification he should make a full recovery (Whew!).
Now that I am finally back in my own home my thoughts return to art. I went out to the studio to see what was the status with my slab parts. Yep, they were dry, very very dry, too dry to bend and too dry to get off the molds. In fact most of them had cracked as they dried and the clay shrunk! Zut alors, what to do. Being one who does not give up on something once started I cut the parts off the molds and got to work. I began to slice the parts up and put the pieces back together the best I could, joining the pieces on the inside with slip and coils. Starting with the foot, then the body, next was the neck and finally the lid and finial. It was very painstaking but I just kept on going, slipping, scoring, joining building the form up, checking the pot for balance as I went. I began to think about how humans and clay pots are similar, the shared resilience and strength that is the core of both. Also how we name the parts of a pot after the parts of the body ie; neck, head, belly, shoulder, body, foot, lip, throat and so on. Along the way this pot became something more than just a pot, it is a testament to survival, to having something (someone) returned to you when you though it was lost. Although is was rough going I would not give up on Frankenpot, this pot would live! And it does, as you can see from the images it is a bit wonky and has many seams. It is far from symmetrical but it is balanced and will not fall over. I have covered it with plastic and now it needs to dry slowly and evenly but with some care and patience it will be just fine!